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>Today’s New Band – The Tumbledryer Babies

>Returning back to the UK has been everything I expected, for good and bad. Cold winds, rain, baked beans on toast and football violence. They just don’t do those kind of things as well in continental Europe.

Proper Indie is something else that’s done better here. Wait – that’s not musical xenophobia – there’s loads of great bands abroad, it’s just that Britain seems to lead when it comes to that brand of songs recorded in bedrooms, by bands with unusual names, made up of pasty young men.

Let’s shoehorn Today’s New Band into that category, too. In all honesty, I’m not sure if The Tumbledryer Babies are actually pasty white youths, but it’s a reasonable gamble to assume so. Their songs are pitch-perfect Bedroom Indie – lo-fi and lo-budget; hi-invention and hi-fun. A song that snipes at the unfairly popular trendies: Predictable Teens. A song that celebrates the status of the uncool: Now The Geeks Have A Union.

Tell Me What To Do swivels an ironic eye to the past, nicking an old rock ‘n’ roll bassline, some ‘shoop-shoop’ backing vocals, and a twist on a traditional line – “He hit me and it didn’t really feel like a kiss”. But it’s no dumb pastiche – the song is either a wry glance at bands who slavishly follow a defined path to stardom, or a cute love song – I’m not sure which. I hope it’s the former, but would happily settle for the latter.

Evan Dando’s The Outdoor Type nicely apes and reverses the Lemonheads’ song – “I can’t go away with you on a rock-climbing weekend/What if something’s on TV that’s never on again?” The desire for a lazy, stay-at-home-and-play-records-and-videogames life is shared by plenty. The Tumbledryer Babies have a market to meet their songs, and they deserve to be heard outside of darkened bedrooms across the land. They make simple, natty songs about their simple, natty lives. Listen here!